Alexander Voronel.Photo: Russian media.
Alexander Voronel, a famous Soviet physicist, dissident, writer and publisher, passed away in Tel Aviv at the age of 93. His name is associated not only with significant scientific achievements, but also with the struggle for the rights of Soviet Jews and the development of the Zionist movement. This was reported by the Time Ukraine Israel portal, citing Israeli Channel 9.
Alexander Voronel, Doctor of Science in Physics and Mathematics and Professor at Tel Aviv University, has made a significant contribution to physics. His dissertation on thermodynamic properties at critical points in liquid-vapour was a scientific breakthrough. He once worked as a laboratory manager and senior researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and taught at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Fighting for freedom
In the 1970s, when Soviet Jews began to fight for the right to leave for Israel, Voronel became one of the leading activists of the Zionist movement. When he applied for emigration, he was denied in 1972, after which he was fired from his job and persecuted.
In response, he founded the underground magazine Jews in the USSR, which became an important information resource for the Zionist movement. To avoid being accused of being a “freeloader”, Voronel worked as a secretary to the prominent physicist Mikhail Leontovich.
Despite pressure and threats from the KGB, in 1974 the Voronels obtained permission to leave and arrived in Israel in 1975.
Literary heritage
In Israel, Oleksandr Voronel worked as a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. In the early 1990s, when the mass aliyah from the USSR began, he and his wife Nina, a playwright and writer, founded the literary almanac 22. The publication became a key platform for the literary expression of Soviet Jewish immigrants.
The Voronel couple became a symbol of the resilience of the Soviet Jewish family, which, through the struggle for freedom and repatriation, gained the opportunity to create and live freely. Their story is an example of courage and selflessness.
